Split

The bus journey from Dubrovnik to Split provides some fantastic views of the Croatian coastline. I also had three litres of lemon Ice Tea to keep me company. Along the way we passed through many smalls towns and villages which I’m sure would be worth visiting if you were looking to go to a quiet and less touristy destination. Unfortunately I don’t have any photographs of the coastline as It’s pretty difficult to take decent pictures through a bus window. At this point doing a Google Images search would probably be a good idea.

The journey to Split took about 4.5 hours which isn’t too bad considering it’s all along coastal roads and the bus can’t get up to any decent speed.
Upon our arrival we headed to Hostel Booze & Snooze located in the Old Town of Split. Although it was less than 1km from the station it took a little while to find due to Google Maps being completely useless.

After checking in we headed out to Buffet Fife which was recommended by the hostel staff. It is a traditional Croatian restaurant with great food and service. Chris opted for the pašticada and I went for the beef goulash. Being in Europe we got talking to our waiter about football. He was a big fan of Hajduk Split and hated arch rivals Dinamo Zagreb. Fans of Hajduk Split are seen as a little bit crazy by other Croatians and I got the impression that they were somewhat militant in their support of the team due to the large number of murals that are painted around the city. Perhaps they are just very passionate?

Hajduk Split, "difficult place to go on a Tuesday night", (Football Cliché)

In the evening we headed to a bar called Charlie’s which is popular with travellers. As seems to be the norm Chris and I rocked up to the bar far too early and found the place looking pretty empty. After and hour of so things picked up and we got talking to some cool Irish lads who were also on their travels. Got back to the hostel late. Drunk.

Woke up and headed to a place called Tonik for some breakfast. Very pretentious spelling it with a “K” but I think I can forgive them as the food and drink was excellent. The places has an extensive menu of smoothies and fresh juice as well as a solid selection of sandwiches. The B.L.T and strawberry smoothie was greatly needed to get the taste of stale beer out of my mouth. If you’re ever in Split make sure you check this place out.

In order to walk off the B.L.T we decided to walk up a big hill which overlooks the city. From there you can get a good view of the Old Town and and harbour. Split isn’t a very big place at all. Population just 227,000.

Walking around the Old Town and harbour is very pleasant. It is an attractive looking city and there are plenty of bars and restaurants to choose from.

Diocletian’s Palace which was built during the 4th century AD is well worth a look. The cellars now serve as a market selling all kinds of crap that I definitely wouldn’t want to buy. Other people seemed very interested though. Considering its age the whole thing is surprisingly well preserved.

Diocletian’s Palace. Apparently he used to hold some wicked parties here.

We headed to the train station in the afternoon to try and get reservations for our journey to Zagreb the next day. However, we were told that we couldn’t get reservations as we did not have our Inter Rail tickets with us. This is stupid for a number of reasons which I won’t go into and I decided that it probably wasn’t worth getting into an arguement about. No need to spoil diplomatic relations with Croatia.

It was still a little too early to have dinner so we stopped for coffee along the harbour and did a spot of people watching. This is always a good way to pass the time. In other news, Croatian coffee tastes suspiciously like espresso.